Bellingshausen Sea

an area of the S Pacific Ocean off the coast of Antarctica

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Bellingshausen Sea

the border sea of the Southern Ocean on the shores of Antarctica, between the Antarctic and Thurston peninsulas. Depth, from 410 to 4,470 m in the open sea. The shore is mountainous and bordered with shelf glaciers. The sea’s large islands are Peter I Island and Alexander I Land. The water temperature in the north is about 0° C; in the south, lower than - 1° C. In summer the salinity is approximately 33.5 parts per thousand. The currents move clockwise. The larger part of the sea’s surface is covered with floating sea ice and icebergs year-round; in the winter and spring months the entire surface of the sea is covered with ice. The sea was discovered by the Russian expedition of F. F. Bellingshausen and M. P. Lazarev in 1821.

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References in periodicals archive

During mid-June, a stationary wave-three atmospheric pattern began to develop (Section 6b), with broad low-pressure centers to the north of the Bellingshausen Sea (~80[degrees]W), East Antarctica (~140[degrees]E), and Dronning Maud Land (~40[degrees]E) that broadly correspond to the SIE anomalies (Fig.

Through May and into early June, SIE continued to be above average across much of East Antarctica but below average in the western Ross, Amundsen, and Bellingshausen Seas and across the eastern Weddell Sea and Indian Ocean sectors (~10[degrees]W-80[degrees]E).

6. ANTARCTICA

5; this flight originated in Punta Arenas, flew to the Bellingshausen Sea marginal ice zone, and then profiled northward along 90[degrees]W.

THE [O.sub.2]/[N.sub.2] RATIO AND C[O.sub.2] AIRBORNE SOUTHERN OCEAN STUDY

6.3f), with anomalies over the Antarctic Peninsula, Bellingshausen Sea, and eastern Amundsen Sea more than 2.5 standard deviations below the climatological average.

A positive anomaly then appeared in the Bellingshausen Sea and strengthened in later months of 2015 (Figs.

State of the Climate in 2015

The ASL is the climatological area of low pressure located in the South Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean (SO), which comprises the Ross Sea, the Amundsen Sea, and the Bellingshausen Sea, over the latitude band 60[degrees]-70[degrees]S.

The Amundsen sea low: variability, change, and impact on antarctic climate: the Amundsen Sea low (ASL) has deepened in recent decades, influencing the West antarctic climate

The large negative anomaly center in 2013 over the Drake Passage and the Bellingshausen Sea (between 45[degrees] and 120[degrees]W) is weaker and shifted to the Amundsen and Ross Seas in 2014.

State of the Climate in 2014

However, the magnitudes of anomalies are increased but the extents were smaller compared to 2012, especially the negative anomalies over the Bellingshausen Sea (between 60[degrees] and 110[degrees]W).

State of the climate in 2013

The cooling trends, in contrast, are small and spatially limited, confined to the North Atlantic near Greenland and the Amundsen and Bellingshausen Seas off the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

CLIMATE CHANGE: An Information Statement of the American Meteorological Society

In West Antarctica, ice shelves are being eaten away by warm ocean water, and those in the Amundsen and Bellingshausen seas have thinned by as much as 18 percent since the early 1990s.

Satellites document alarming ice loss in Antarctica

Satellite observations show that several ice shelves on the Amundsen and Bellingshausen seas thinned between 2003 and 2008.

Antarctic ice shelf threatened by warming: collapse could trigger major melting and sea level rise